Museveni wants reconciliation
2005-10-21 14:42
Kamapala - Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni called for national reconciliation as he mourned a foe he has granted a state funeral, and said the spirit of forgiveness could even be extended to notorious dictator Idi Amin.
"We should not squander an opportunity of reconciliation," Museveni said on Thursday as he stood before of the casket of former President Milton Obote during a special session of parliament. Obote was to be buried on Friday.
"May the soul of the late President Milton Obote, who is a long-time member of this parliament, rest in peace," Museveni said.
Obote, 80, died on October 10 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he had been hospitalised for several weeks. He had been living in self-imposed exile in Zambia partly because Museveni had said if he returned home, he faced trial on charges that he was responsible for the deaths of as many as 500 000 people.
History could be reviewed
"We reviewed the turbulent history of Uganda and we saw the need for reconciliation," said Museveni, who raised an army and fought a civil war against Obote from 1980 until 1985 and frequently insulted him in public.
Ugandans were surprised when Museveni granted Obote a state funeral. His comments on Thursday on Amin were likely to surprise them even more.
"Since the resolve of reconciliation is a lot stronger, we have to review the position of the late President Idi Amin," Museveni said. He added only that his government had not discussed the issue.
Amin's name has been associated around the world with brutality since his 1971 to 1979 rule in Uganda. Estimates of the toll of real and imagined enemies he killed - bodies were dumped into Lake Victoria and the Nile because graves couldn't be dug fast enough - are as high as 300 000.
Amin died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003 and is buried there.
Amin worse than Obote
Obote served as Uganda's first prime minister following independence in 1962. In 1966, Obote staged a coup against King Mutesa 2 and declared himself president.
When then-army chief Amin seized power in 1971 while Obote was at a Commonwealth meeting in Singapore, many Ugandans thought they had been delivered from dictatorship. They came to see Amin as worse.
During Amin's tyrannical rule, Obote lived in neighbouring Tanzania, protected but kept publicly silent by his friend, then-President Julius Nyerere.
Nyerere's soldiers, supporting Ugandan rebels, helped drive Amin from power in Kampala in April 1979. Obote returned and won disputed elections in 1980, ruling until being ousted in a coup in 1985.
A year after the 1985 coup that ousted Obote, Museveni took power by force.
Obote never returned to Uganda after he fled first to Kenya in 1985 and then to Zambia, where fellow independence leader Kenneth Kaunda granted him exile.
- AP